WHETHER the worker for Christ be engaged in the Sunday School, in visiting the sick, or in giving gospel addresses, there are certain great principles which should be carefully observed, if he would succeed.
Foremost among these we would place sympathy. It is not enough to love the members of the class; each child requires the teacher's sympathy; unless there be sympathy with the invalid our visit will be in vain; while missing this in addressing an audience, we miss the hearts of our hearers.
Strike a chord on the piano and you will hear a faint response within the instrument, the chord you struck has called out a corresponding chord. Seek so to speak and teach that your words may reach into the hearts of your hearers, and call forth a response to your heart.
Now, in order to accomplish this great end, it is necessary that you acquaint yourself with the heart and mind of your audience. You must get to the level of those you address. If you would lead them up, it must be by yourself first getting down to where they are. To attain ill's, painstaking love is necessary.
Dry and difficult speaking, that wanders over the heads of the class, is occasioned by the teacher's lack of true interest in his young charge. Generally, a dry address is the result of the speaker having worked up a subject in his study, without having studied the minds of his hearers.
A very good man of our acquaintance spent much of his life in visiting the sick, but he was lacking in sympathy, We remember on one occasion calling upon a dying man whom the worthy visitor had just left. He was unusually faint and weary, but, with a plaintive smile, he described how Mr.— had been over half an hour with him, giving him the substance of the lecture he had last heard! The lecture covered a very difficult subject, and, as the sick man seemed dull in grasping the resume of it, the visitor had enforced it into his ear with a loud, strong voice! Here were pain and distress caused by a truly good man, because he did not consider the invalid. It had been far better to sit by the side of that dear sufferer, and to let him pour his trials into one's heart, and then to mingle a few words of heavenly comfort, gently spoken, with his affliction.
It may be pleasing to oneself to tell to others difficult things from the word of God, but we shall not seek to please ourselves if we sympathize with our hearers—no, we shall try to tell them the things that will do them the most good. We shall in this follow the example of the apostle Paul. Study his manner of serving souls, whether the unconverted, or whether those of the flock of God, and you will obtain much help in your way of work.
The worker for the Master is a servant, and must serve. It is a very wholesome exercise for the soul to really serve in spiritual things, and by cultivating sympathy with those whom we wish to serve we learn to forget ourselves. Sympathy is more to be esteemed than eloquence, and one reason why God has entrusted His gospel to men is that men can speak to men, heart to heart.